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Bolivian authorities ordered the arrest of a judge in a widening scandal triggered by an American businessman’s report of being fleeced and extorted by corrupt prosecutors.

Prosecutors issued an order for the arrest of magistrate Ariel Rocha after he failed to appear before an investigating commission, making him the highest judicial official implicated in the scandal.

The accusations against the judge were announced a day after New York businessman Yanky Ostreicher was granted house arrest. He was jailed in a money laundering case in June 2011 but was never charged with any crime and said that tens of millions of dollars in rice, cattle and farm equipment were stolen from him by corrupt officials.

“I almost feel like I’m in a dream,” Ostreicher told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in the city of Santa Cruz on Wednesday. He said it will take time to adjust after 18 months of detention.